Ecclesiastical Self-Care Counseling(Self-Care)

This course requires an enrolment key

THE TENETS OF SELF-CARE

These tenets are our opinion, principles, and doctrines as held true by members of our Church.

Sanctified Healing, in our Church, is based on indigenous Christian principles using faith, prayer, and delivery of the sacraments, which is imparted by the talents and gifts of the ordained healer. We of course use the healing power of nature, hygiene, nutrition, health screenings, therapeutics, and spiritual counseling as complements, which help anchor the holy spirit into the flesh. Sanctified healing has as its immediate goal homeostasis within the body, which may be achieved by sanctifying the proper and necessary balance between the integrated components body‐mind‐spirit. But further, the basis of effective healing, by which I mean a healing made manifest by a changed attitude to life so that the local restoration of health becomes durable and progressive, is integration. The center of integration is the spirit of the soul or true self, which informs the rational mind, cleanses and purifies the emotions, and then the body, which renews one with strength and vitality.

Then he said, “You will undoubtedly quote me this proverb: ‘Physician, heal yourself’—meaning, ‘Do miracles here in your hometown like those you did in Capernaum.’

The moral of the proverb is counsel to attend to one's own defects rather than criticizing defects in others. Research shows that people provide their own illness care about 80% of the time. The average individual goes to a doctor only two to three times a year. And the percentage of preventive and wellness care that is self-provided by the health enthusiast runs close to 90%. These figures make it clear that self-care is—and has always been—our predominant form of today's health care. It is the duty of our Deacons, Physicians, Ministers, and Ecclesia to educate our communicants and foster austerity to self-care.

The Second Tenet: Communicants can do more for themselves if they had better access to information.

Most people go to the doctor only when they feel that they lack the resources they need to deal with a health problem themselves. Some of the most promising opportunities for improving our health care tenets is to involve finding ways to make health tools, information, skills, and support available through righteous counsel, combined with the internet. There are many ways for communicants to obtain help by seeking counsel to a Sanctified Healer.

The Third Tenet: Our most powerful health resources are our Sanctified Healers.

An overwhelming body of research suggests that the number one health-determining factor in our lives is not solely how we eat, drink or exercise, or whether we smoke or wear seat belts—rather, it is our social support system. Sanctified Healers take vows to counsel communicants on adhering to healthy lifestyles, dietary reform, and healing attitudes. Communicants join the Church by informed consent, recognizing they have entered the house of the Lord, His Kingdom, bare witness to God's glory and Jesus' health touch.

The Fourth Tenet: Health is not the absence of disease.

There is a continuum from birth -----> wellness -----> illness states. Prevention means focusing on health concerns and behaviors while communicants are still on the wellness side of the spectrum, rather than waiting to act only when disease or disability occurs. Physicians of the Church of Hope must strive towards early diagnosis, self-care, and preventative medicine.

The Fifth Tenet: Health is a part of culture, and different people are outcomes of different cultures.

Sanctified Healers must respect cultural attitudes followers of other religions. What's best for one's health depends —at least in part—on acquired belief systems. It has been well established that the remedies people believe in are much more effective for them. Traditional medicine (also known as indigenous or folk medicine) comprises knowledge systems that developed over generations within various societies before the era of modern medicine. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines traditional medicine as "the sum total of the knowledge, skills, and practices based on the theories, beliefs, and experiences indigenous to different cultures, whether explicable or not, used in the maintenance of health as well as in the prevention, diagnosis, improvement or treatment of physical and mental illness."

The Sixth Tenet: The principal goal of monastic health care should be to help communicants take care of themselves.

Those of us who reached adulthood during the last few decades were brought up to overestimate the effectiveness and safety of professional medical care, and to seriously underestimate our own potential for keeping ourselves healthy, for managing our illnesses, and for taking an active role when working with doctors and other health care practitioners. We need to seek out and support those health workers and consumer groups whose number one priority is to encourage our self-care efforts and increase our level of health responsibility and competence.

The Seventh Tenet: Health springs from regenerative functions.

Many have been taught to think of health problems as inevitable breakdowns that can be repaired only by professionals. As a result, many ignore their health until a problem becomes an emergency. Then establishment medicine attempts heroic solutions like surgery, organ transplant, and drugs.

The human body has innate healing powers. But to operate at their optimal levels, these powers require constant nourishment and care: a healthful diet and environment, regular exercise, the support of others, a meaningful life, and a good measure of self-care. The body has its own wisdom, but it must be listened to, understood, and trusted.